


our lady of sorrows

by enigmatickal



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux is Not Nice, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Issues, Flashbacks, Gen, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Leia Organa, Post-TLJ Canon Compliant, Soft Kylux, not TROS-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-18 23:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20647580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmatickal/pseuds/enigmatickal
Summary: Leia meets her son again for the first time since he was a teenager and has her worst fears realised.





	our lady of sorrows

She saw him first as a red glow in the distance. His saber struck like lightning through blaster fire and grey rain as her comrades fell faster than she could count. He spared the corpses no mind, wading through mud and blood and spent flesh with a practiced ease that put an ache in her chest. Poe shouted from behind her and she ducked just in time to shield herself from the worst of an explosion a few metres to her right. When she re-emerged he had disappeared into the fray.

They had arrived expecting maybe thirty or forty stormtroopers guarding a small supply cache. They’d take what they needed and go without much resistance. The First Order had no real business here; it was a half-deserted backwater planet Leia had only heard about from Han’s smuggling days. The thought of him made the ache sting like a fresh burn.

Her calves throbbed and her vision blurred as she trudged through the downpour as quickly as age allowed her. They’d started with half of what was left of the Resistance and more than half had already fallen. There was no time to care for the wounded, and no supplies besides. She prayed there would be time for that later.

She heard another shout from behind and threw herself into the foul-smelling mud as another blast sent debris up into the storm overhead, plunging them into brief shadow. When she raised her head she saw a face she recognised.

Less than a metre away from where she crouched, Vi Moradi lay sprawled in a pool of slush painted ruby-red with her own blood, still trickling from the gaping wound in her head. She’d always been so brave, the first to rush into danger with a smirk and without a backwards glance. The ache in Leia’s chest flared again. She picked up the discarded blaster beside the body and pushed herself forward, trying to breathe through the wave of grief which settled over her as she stepped over her fallen friend and once more into battle.

The fight was short and brutal. It seemed that time had suddenly pulled itself loose, pulling this way and that as the world around her seemed to move in fits and starts. In the moments between running and yelling and firing she felt herself freeze as the rain continued to fall along with the soldiers, searching for some kind of dumb luck to get them out of this.

A flash of red to her right drew her eye. She’d thought it was him again, but it was the wrong shade, much too orange. Grand Marshal Hux fought with a ferocity tempered only by remarkable self-possession, which lent him a catlike grace at odds with his actions. Although his mouth was set in a hard line, the look of savage joy which lit his eyes as he brought his boot down on the face of another dying Resistance member made her skin crawl. She took aim and fired.

The bolt of her blaster hovered, hissing, in mid-air between them for a second before it flew seemingly of its own will at an angle towards a crowd of sparring fighters. It sent three falling one after the other as they dragged each other down into the deepening mire. She couldn’t tell whose side they belonged to.

She turned instinctively to the warmth she felt at her back. She’d been shivering for so long it had started to make her muscles spasm. She only realised her mistake when she finally met his eyes for the first time since she’d sent him away all those years ago.

Her son did not speak to her. There was no acknowledgement in his gaze as he looked past her — through her — and spoke to Hux, his face illuminated by the crimson glow of his lightsaber.

“It’s done. Bring them back to the ship.”

There was no time to resist before everything went black.

*** 

They were kept in the cells for three days. The First Order were not gracious hosts; there was no more heating beyond what would keep them from freezing solid, and the little food they were given had to be shared among the ten of them. Leia found she could not eat. She was relieved it was over, and ashamed of her relief. She had seen too much, lost too much, yet again, and for now at least she was simply tired.

They passed their days mostly in silence, aware of the troopers stationed within hearing distance outside. They tended to their wounds as best they could and hoped the Order valued their prisoners enough to intervene if they got infected. Leia watched Poe and Finn alternate between frantic whispers and fitful sleep. She saw their easy intimacy — the way their hands found each other, asleep or awake, their knowing smiles when their eyes met — and wondered if she and Han had ever been like that. Between fighting with each other and fighting everyone else, maybe.

She was pulled from the blissful numbness of sleep by the clanging of the cell door as it finally opened. Three figures in black strode in, weapons held aloft. She could only assume by their masks that these were the mysterious Knights of Ren come to fetch her.

They marched her wordlessly through the halls of the ship, Finn and Poe following behind. The route seemed unnecessarily circuitous; a pragmatic measure to prevent them from forming an escape plan. As if any of them had the wherewithal to last that far.

They came to a halt in front of a thick metallic door in a deserted section of the ship. It slid open although their presence had not been announced, and they were thrown onto surprisingly lush carpet at the feet of the Grand Marshal.

The quarters were surprisingly cosy, an odd mixture of mismatched furniture cluttering the main room. A ginger cat snoozed on the arm of an old chair, snoring quietly. Hux lounged on an ice-blue couch in a luxurious dressing gown, sipping amber spirits and puffing on a cigarette. The sweet smell of it seemed to have seeped into the fabric on which she knelt. She would smell it on her clothes tomorrow. Behind him she could see what was left of her father’s helmet, a charred mess set atop the drinks cabinet like some sort of hideous abstract sculpture.

His hair was loose and floppy, and without the usual military stance and severe wardrobe he barely resembled the man they all knew from the First Order propaganda beamed across every known system. Then he smirked, eyes shining with vicious amusement, and he was General Starkiller once more.

“The Resistance will not be intimidated by the likes of you! You’ll regret this, you slimy bastard!” Poe made to stand up, but Finn held him back with a warning glance.

Hux did not fly into the indignant rage she had grown to expect of him. Instead he only laughed softly, “You’re hardly in a position to be making threats.”

Kylo entered wordlessly from an adjoining room, shirtless and towelling his hair dry. He was taller than Han now, his muscled chest covered in a constellation of scars. Marks of a battle in which his own mother was the enemy, and the man sitting before her was an ally. Or something more. She could see a mussed bed behind him, black clothes strewn carelessly across the floor.

His body was hard and weathered, but his face was just the same despite the scar Rey had given him. She remembered that pout, that big nose, those dark curls. She knew them by heart. It was hard to breathe for a moment. She focused on the burn of her knees on the carpet, the ache of her back, the breaths of the men beside her.

Kylo took Hux’s drink and swallowed it down in one before pouring another generous nip, passing it back before flopping bonelessly down onto the couch beside him. Hux thanked him with a brief kiss, and Leia exercised every fibre of her being in showing none of her revulsion on her face.

He must have sensed it. As Hux pulled away, he finally looked at her.

His eyes were cold like his lover’s, deep and dark like a pit. She wanted to scream, to cry, to shake him out of whatever this was, but most of all she wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his face.

“_Ben._”

She was ashamed of the tremor in her voice. She should be furious. She’d meant to be. All those innocent people, those brave fighters, his own father, and he felt nothing but pride.

“I’m sure you’re wondering how we knew of your movements,” Hux took another sip of his drink, “One of your people gave us some information, in exchange for a favour.”

“The favour of not killing his entire family very slowly and painfully. It was a big favour.”

Hux chuckled at Kylo’s interjection, “We did it anyway, of course, and the mole for good measure. Couldn’t have his conscience getting the better of him and foiling our plans. Our stormtroopers are better trained than that; your little Resistance could benefit from conditioning its soldiers to remove such troublesome emotions.”

Finn was halfway towards them, roaring with rage and arms outstretched ready to strangle his one-time commander, before he froze.

Kylo slowly closed his outstretched hand and Finn spluttered, spit flying from his mouth as he struggled to breathe. Leia felt herself locked in place, terrified that the slightest twitch would be followed with the sound of breaking bone as Kylo crushed his throat. Poe was equally still beside her, although she felt him vibrating with rage.

After what felt like an eternity Kylo relented and he finally gasped a painful breath, still frozen uncomfortably in place. His eyes watered, but his gaze was still furious behind the pain and fear clouding them.

Hux moved to stand toe to toe with him as he continued to struggle in the invisible grip, pulling him roughly by the front of his shirt to hiss at him.

“You’re a filthy, degenerate traitor and I’d kill you myself in an instant, but we’re not done with you yet.”

He let go and Kylo threw him backwards. Finn’s head hit the durasteel of the door with bone-cracking thud and Poe, heedless of danger as ever, rushed to help him.

They paid them no mind. Hux fetched Kylo a drink, and Kylo drank it down in another single gulp before settling himself lengthways on the couch, his head cradled in the other man’s lap. Hux looked down at him fondly and smoothed his hair.

She looked from where Finn and Poe were huddled by the door to the two men in front of her looking at each other with undisguised adoration. Kylo had never liked to be touched, even by her. He had always had a fit about getting his hair cut, to the point that she’d just let him do it himself in fear of another destructive tantrum. He clearly let Hux … touch him. She looked to the bed in the next room again and the ache in her chest returned in full force. Her son was in love with the man who built the machine that destroyed billions. He’d done his best to kill the same. They were meant for each other.

“What do you want with us, then? I’m sure you’re too busy subjugating the galaxy for social calls.”

Hux chuckled, still stroking her son’s hair, “She’s just as feisty as you said she was.”

She imagined he two of them together, perhaps in bed or lounging like this on the couch, talking about her. What stories did he tell of his childhood?

She remembered the arguments with Han about their son. Finding Ben listening at the door, eyes welling with tears of shame. Hiding somewhere no one could find him until he could pretend it had never happened. That last morning when he came into their room and begged not to go with Uncle Luke for the hundredth time. He didn’t want to leave them. She thought she knew best.

“We want information,” Hux’s voice pulled her out of the memory, “Either you give it to us of your own free will, or we take it by force.”

It was always going to come to this. She knew from the moment she’d woken up in a dank cell that it was only a matter of when. Her heart still sank.

“You can do anything you like to me. I won’t tell you anything.”

Hux was still stroking Kylo like a faithful hound. He leant into it, luxuriating in the affection. It was repulsive.

“And what about your comrades? Will they break under Kylo’s… _attentions_?”

She felt it first as a fullness, a pressure at her temples. It could have been mistaken for a headache. Then she felt a cold so intense it burned. 

_“Don’t make me go! I won’t! I won’t!”_

_She’d never seen him like this before. Angry, certainly, and often wild. But never truly out of control._

_She felt her heart beat hard in her throat as Ben hurled another chair across the room with the Force. It crashed into a shower of splinters which caught in his hair and cut his outstretched hands, but he was too far gone to notice. The table started to shake, three sets of knives and forks flying haphazardly from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, followed by the contents of every shelf in the room. She couldn’t tell if it was only by chance they hadn’t poked anyone’s eye out. Still he continued to plead in an endless litany tinged with pure panic._

_“Don’t make me! Don’t make me!”_

_He picked up the last unbroken chair with his bare hands and threw it with the strength of a full-grown adult towards her. She threw herself to the floor and it crashed above her. As the splinters fell on her she heard him rush to her side, panting._

_“Mum! Mum! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Mum…”_

_He wept until he hiccoughed, too exhausted to even open his eyes._

_“Please.”_

_She pulled her son to her chest. For once he let her hold him without complaint, nuzzling into her neck. She could feel his tears as they soaked into her shirt._

_They fell asleep right there on the floor, together for the last time. The last time they were a family._

The images left her as violently as they had come. It felt as though they’d been ripped from her through her very skull, taking sinew and bone with them.

When she finally looked up he was still looking at Hux, waiting for praise. There was no sign that he’d just relived a painful memory, although she knew she was crouching there on the floor, panting like a frightened animal.

“Good boy,” Hux crooned, “So good for me.”

Kylo clutched the hand still running through his hair and kissed its palm, eyes closed in contentment.

“You have twenty-four hours to make your choice. If you can’t decide, we will do so for you.”

Strong hands hauled her up and marched her from the room. As she neared the door she looked back one last time at the man who was and always would be her son.

He didn’t look back at her.


End file.
